Chapter 3, people! Beware, I've got some FUN things in mind for all of you. We're going to have fun on this island! Understand? We are going to have fun on this island! So don't try it on, my poor, misguided boy...

"So it's settled, then. We're going to kill Ralph." Jack jammed his spear into the earth and faced the gathered islanders. The setting sun was at his back, although obscured by the forest, and his face was red. Even after hours of discussion, a real plan had not been agreed upon, and his frustration was beginning to show.

Piggy took the conch and stood. "I still don't see the use of doing that," he said. "What 'ud it do? He's not fully batty yet; I talked to him just this afternoon." A clamor arose.

Jack raised his hand for silence. "With Ralph gone we wouldn't have to worry about him anymore. We could just hunt and play and do as we pleased, without him to be afraid of. Why, we might even try and get rescued."

"But you jus' said you didn't wanna be rescued," said Piggy. "You said we'd never get off the island."

"Well, I want off now," someone said. There was a murmur of agreement: no one wanted to be stuck in a place where you could lose your mind so easily. Not two days ago Ralph was the sanest among them.

Piggy looked over at Simon's body, which was now stiff and pale. It glowed eerily in the light of the setting sun. "Well, we got to get rid of Simon," he said, "at least for tonight."

Jack sighed. "I suppose we can just give him back to Ralph while we decide what to do—with both of them. It can't hurt. Who wants to take it back?" Silence.

There were no volunteers, and it was easy to see why: the shadows were long and the forest was alive with terrors that could only be formed in the imagination. Simon's body was also not a thing of beauty; in fact, it was quite beastly: caked with dried blood and dirt, flesh torn, bones broken, disfigured, mutilated, murdered. It was us, wasn't it? We made him a beast. He was nothing to be frightened of, but now...

A chilly breeze swept through the forest and leaves rattled. The children shivered and huddled together, their facial features obscuring in the dwindling light.

"Simon would've gone alone," a littlun said, barely audible. "He did before." No one replied.

"We got to do something," Piggy said, trying to return them to reason. "We can't leave him here—the bacteria might cause an infection. An' he'll scare the littluns. We won't get a wink of sleep."

"We could always go somewhere else," said Robert.

"Where?" someone replied. Nobody wanted to go into the forest. Nobody wanted to join Ralph near the platform. And no one—absolutely no one—wanted to go to the beach where the dance had taken place. The only other option was the mountain, and that was perhaps the worst place yet: the beast was there, the real beast, that Jack and Ralph and Roger and Samneric had seen with their own eyes. The island was full of untold terrors.

"Per—perhaps we could sleep in shifts," someone suggested. "Then, if something happened, we could wake the others."

"I would rather sleep through a beast attack." Piggy recognized the voice as Maurice's.

"There's always Castle Rock," said Roger. "If we make a run for it..."

Silence again. The children, frozen in fear, knew in their hearts that they wouldn't be going anywhere until the sun returned. Perhaps it wasn't dangerous, but it was scary, and at least here they were together.

Not another word was said for the rest of the night. They huddled close together, littluns on the inside and biguns on the outside, shivering. Piggy wondered what he would do should the corpse start moving. What if it rose up, started walking toward them...? Fear gripped his belly. That can't happen. It's illogical. It's preposterous. It's incongruous. It's—

But Piggy never thought of the last adjective. The fatigue of his body overpowered the fear in his mind, and he fell asleep.

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Again, his sleep was riddled with troublesome dreams. In one particularly vivid scene, he found himself floating in the ocean. The water was cold and dark; he couldn't see, couldn't move. There was no particular sense of danger, but there was a queer feeling—a feeling he'd never had before. He had no urge to move, to breathe. In this vast, dark ocean of nothingness, there was no harm. He simply was.

In another, he was back at home. His auntie was pulling something out of the oven: a pig's head, cooked to perfection, with an apple in its mouth. But there was something odd about this pig. Its eyes were open, and they followed Piggy wherever he went. And then his auntie was gone, and Piggy was alone with the head.

"Do you think that the beast has finished with his work?" the head asked. "No, he is only beginning! You would know better than anyone—why, he's you, of course! You, and the others, too."

"I wouldn't do anything so terrible!" Piggy said back to the head. "And how can you be talking? You're a head! You're dead! I seen you before, and you were just as dead then!"

"You're not dead, though, are you?" said the head. It laughed. "My boy, that is all that matters. As long as you and the others live, so do I."

"That doesn't make no sense at all. Just because I'm alive, doesn't mean you are."

"But it does, child!" The head rose from the platter, was supported by a stick sharpened at both ends. The eyes and mouth and ears all ran red with blood. "If I am you, it makes perfect sense!" Its voice sounded like the buzzing of a thousand flies.

"No, no it don't!" Piggy shouted above the awful sound. "I'm me, just me! You're not real! You can't be! You can't be!" The laughter faded. Piggy opened his eyes. There was the sun.

Okay, I'm done for tonight. That was heavy...sorry, folks. I told you we were going to have fun. It's a lot shorter than the other two chapters, but that's because this one is kind of dense. I'll update this soon. I'm not high, I promise. It has an uplifting ending. See you soon, if I didn't scare you away.